The Hong Kong Alternative Car Park Tower, designed by Chris Y. H. Chan + Stephanie M. L. Tan, is an alternative building typology that could fit for a city with very limited land resources. At the same time, they are critiquing the current developments of most metropolitan cities: growing rapidly without vision and preparation for our human future. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Most cities still utilize the logic of 19th and 20th century design whereas this traditional urban/architecture logic does not involve consideration of sustainable strategies and socio-cultural interactions in a never-ending world. This carpark becomes a testing field for us to pose out an alternative type of our city but not only a carpark tower.

This carpark tower segregates into five layers and laminate five open air public platforms and dining areas. This kind of mixed-use and hybrid design could enrich the value of this building. The building no longer becomes a city of amenities, but more or less becoming a public precinct for people to live, to enjoy, to rest, and to celebrate.

Mixed-use refers to an idea of space, alienated to the program and the natural environment, which contradicts the historical experience of constructed space and its known forms of classification. This is what we are challenging in this project. It is about contradicting with the surroundings; a contradiction that something may be wrong, but happens everywhere.